“You’re stuck in a God-awful mess, and so It doesn’t make sense to us that that would be happening at a time when the need for y’all actually would be increasing,” Biden said, adding that was why the administration pushed for added public safety spending in the first recovery act.

Biden referred to lawmakers who always vote against funding for local law enforcement. “At least they’re consistent,” he said, rapping those who stopped supporting the funding in tight fiscal times.

“They walked away because they didn’t like the way we were paying for it,” Biden said, referring to tax increases on the rich.

“There’s one thing we know: the more cops on the street, the fewer cops get killed. The more firefighters responding to a fire, the fewer injuries to the firefighters, because you have each other’s backs,” Biden said.